It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade, old landmarks crumble and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.

Watch Out For Global Warming Muths!

One of the things that distinguishes science from things like religion or corporate PR is that science pays attention to the details, the little facts that add up to form reality.

So, it ought to serve as a warning that something’s not quite right with Dr. Roy Spencer’s book Climate Confusion, when he promises that, as he tries to debunk science about global warming, he won’t be relying on statistics. In describing how climate “really works”, Spencer says that his analysis will be “forsaking blindingly technical statistics”.

If Dr. Spencer won’t be using statistics to debunk scientific research about global warming, what will he use? His common sense? ESP?

Science is built upon statistics. It has to be, because true science tries to measure reality in a replicable way, so that one scientist’s ideas can be verified or debunked by others. If you don’t use statistics like say, temperature or levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, then theories about global warming and climate change are awfully difficult to test scientifically.

Roy Spencer’s promise not to rely on “technical statistics” is a promise to base his arguments on something other than scientific method. That’s nothing new for Spencer, who has proclaimed that “Intelligent Design” Creationism is science and the theory of evolution is religion.

Spencer has also worked as an advisor to the Interfaith Stewardship Center, an organization which promotes what it calls a “proper and balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development.” How can a balanced version of climate science possibly be based upon a “Biblical view”?

Spencer hasn’t just been mixing science and religion, however. He’s also been mixing Big Oil money and science. Spencer has worked for the Heartland Institute, an organization that has received substantial funding from Exxon-Mobil, and for the George C. Marshall Institute, another organization that has taken money from Exxon-Mobil.

Technical statistics have been sorely out of whack in Roy Spencer’s work on climate. Spencer authored a paper in 2003 that claimed to show cooling in the troposphere – proof that global warming was bogus. A couple years later, when colleagues examined Spencer’s work, they found it to be filled with statistical errors. When dealt with correctly, the statistics showed that the troposphere had actually warmed – evidence that global warming is not bogus.

Paying attention to the details matters in science, and in communicating with the public about science. So, I thought it an appropriate measure of Roy Spencer’s professional credibility when I saw that an advertisement for his book, Climate Confusion, read: “Climate Change Muths Exposed by NASA Climatologist. Save 30% Online”.

Update: The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration just released one of those “blindingly technical statistics” that seem to drive Roy Spencer nuts. A few weeks ago, NOAA announced that, in spite of industry hype about a cold wave in the East, January was actually warmer than average in the United States. Now, NOAA has the global temperatures for the rest of the planet from January, and has found that January was the 7th warmest January on record.

4 comments to Watch Out For Global Warming Muths!

i wonder if this book is being promoted or underwritten by Exxon-Mobil, et al. They’ve been at it for years and due to their greed and short-sightedness, it’s most likely far too late to do anything (even going “green”, which we’re going to HAVE to do anyway for economic and resource scarcity reasons) to mitigate the coming devastation.

We’re going to pay for screwing up the planet via our ignorant human “civilization” of greed-driven destruction and consumption with our lives, and possibly our species existence along with all the other species we’ve helped into extinction by our way of living off the planet (rather than tending to the planet). Technology will not save us, but it might help our survival as a species if we were actually doing it globally NOW – which we certainly are NOT.
By the time the wide-spread conversion to sustainable energy is undertaken throughout the world and in it’s advanced stages of reducing our carbon output, it’ll be obvious that we were way too late.

1. Measurements are made using different instruments using different methods at different times, which raises issues for long-term comparison.
2. May 2009 is still above the overall average for the period.
3. The months before May are far above the overall average for the period.
4. If that trend of one month continues for the long term over a period of years and we head into a period of global cooling, then by golly, we will be heading into a period of global cooling, and the validity of the global warming hypothesis will have to be reassessed. But it is, um, one month’s deviation you’re talking about. So wait and see.

Well, Jim. Try doing some linear regression over that
period of 30 years (if you insist on using linear trends).
I should estimate the slope to about 0.4 deg C / 30 years
which makes, um, 1.2 degrees in 90 years.

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